Alone
by justreidabook
Summary: To be part of a family & mentally connected to them constantly, being alone is unthinkable. When Niadra was ripped out of this protective shield, she swore to perform the one task she was given by her queen. So what happens when she is transported somewhere a long time ago, in a galaxy far away? Features Empire At War:Forces Of Corruption. This story is not on hiatus.
1. Arrival

**This is my first full story I am going to write, excluding** ** _Operation:Imperial Ember_** **, since that was just a simple, albeit longer, one shot. I'll skip the thing about different types of speech, since I assume you have seen it enough times befor now to know what is what. If not, you will figure out. Please send a PM if you find anything misspelled or sounds odd, no matter how insignificant. With that all said, I would like you to know that posts will be short-ish and have much time between them. Enjoy.**

* * *

Niadra stood on the bridge of the Protoss starship, looking out contemplatively at the stars. She thought about the day, long ago, when she was created. The Leviathan, warm and full of the thoughts of her fellow Zerg. The Protoss scientist, who's anxiety was easy to see. Then, her arrival on this very ship itself, at the time cold and empty of Zerg. Her metamorphosis, where she burst out of her cocoon and received her task from her queen to destroy the Protoss aboard the ship. She fought until she had destroyed the last of her enemies; an Archon; with her brood. And then, suddenly was cut off from the _rest_ swarm, alone.

She had vowed to destroy the Protoss, and she would. Nothing can hold back the swarm, not for long. While some may slow their advance, they shall never face defeat. Powerful or not, her brood would destroy all Protoss, or die trying. All they had to do was get off of this ship. Unfortunately, with the warp drives damaged beyond repair and escape pods nothing more than shredded metal graves, that task was all but impossible.

" _Mother Niadra, we have found something that may be of use to the swarm._ "

Niadra reached out into the hive mind to the queen who had made this statement. A new discovery? They had been drifting in this ship for years, and anything of possible use should of been discovered long ago. Using her subordinate's eyes, she gazed upon the object before her.

" _What is this... thing?_ "

Before the queen was a piece of Protoss technology, shaped like a sphere. It was the usual golden color of the creations of her foes, and covered in markings that meant nothing to her.

" _One of the overlords discovered it near the engines. It was masked from our sight before by wreckage._ "

Curious. She had her minions thoroughly search the ship for anything that could be used against the Protoss or her brood. The fact that they missed this was confusing, but unimportant.

" _Can we use it?_ "

"It is possible. It has been emitting increasing amounts of psionic energy since the overlord discovered it. We may be able to control it. Also, there appears to be controls like the ones the Protoss use."

Suddenly, Niadra sensed a powerful shudder go through the ship, followed by even more. To her growing dismay, they were starting to damage the ship. The next shocking discovery was that they originated from the device in the hands of the Queen under her control. Perhaps it was her lack of experience with technology, or maybe it was bad luck. However, the choice she made that moment would bring the demise of most her brood.

" _Destroy it! Now!_ "

The queen obediently threw it to the ground and began firing spines into it. Upon contact with the first of the spines, a wave of psionic energy fired from the device in all directions. The queen was instantly ripped apart, with other Zerg creatures nearby dying as well. At the same moment Niadra felt psionic power pass into her mind, causing her excruciating agony for a few seconds. Suddenly, just as quickly as it began, it stopped.

Niadra barely had a moment to recover from the pain before the entire back half of the ship exploded. At the same time, the ships destroyed warp drive activated and initiated a jump through space towards an unknown location as it was destroyed. Once again her brood died as they were sucked out into space. She felt the pull of this vacuum and has swept off her feet and towards her death, saved by the fact that her massive size couldn't fit through the door, saving the lives of two queens and her ursadon in the process. This went on for a few more seconds before the supposedly destroyed emergency shields came into place, ending the carnage. Yet it was too late, as she found almost her entire brood gone, limited to the few on the bridge with her and a lone overlord outside the room, punctured through the head by a peace of metal that prevented it from leaving the ship earlier, slowly dying. Staring out into the void of space as it flew by the window at nearly impossible speeds, she lamented to herself about the deaths of her children.

Minutes later they stopped traveling, ending up in front of a planet covered in snow.

Relief way felt through her bond with her remaining forces. Then, she felt something... familiar. Yet, she had no memory of ever being near such a presence. She than delved into the memories of the swarm that she retained from after her creation, and found what she was looking for. They were Terrans. If she had a mouth, Niadra would have definitely grinned. As it was, she simply prepared to annihilate her foes.

"For the swarm."


	2. Landing

**Hope you guys like this chapter. Oh, read, review, and Merry Christmas!**

* * *

Captain Trusk was having a bad day. First, his raid on a trade caravan had been botched when an imperial star destroyer had dropped out of hyperspace. Then he had been given orders to escort a half dozen ships to a star system in the middle of nowhere so they could set up a training facility for the Zaan Consortium. However, before he was even halfway there, he had to pull his ships out of hyperspace when a Dekard that had gotten ahead of the convoy was destroyed by a meteor shower that just happened to be in their way. He had still lost three more ships before they were safe. This wasn't going to look good on his report. Just to make things worse, just as they were about to continue on their course, some sort of anomaly short circuited their hyperdrives, leaving them stranded until they can be fixed.

"Capitan! We're picking up another ship on our sensors!"

"What! What is it!" Please don't be an imperial ship. They almost never came this far into the outer rim, but with his luck-

"I'm not sure. It's almost as large as us, but it looks like it's been torn in half."

He grinned. Perhaps his luck was about to change. "Get an assault squad on that ship and see if they can find anything that could possibly be valuable. We might as well have a few prizes for Tyber Zaan when we're done with this."

* * *

A mercenary assault squad waited anxiously in the doorway of their Dekard as the two pilots brought them up alongside the derelict ship. The scraping sound of their docking tube was reassuring to them. They had been out of their element, forced to trust two pilots to keep themselves alive. Now they would be back to having control over their lives.

"This is your pilot speaking. You can get off my ship now. Thanks for traveling Zaan merc lines and don't forget to leave a tip on the way out."

"If you shut up we might not kill you! Now open the door!" one of the mercenaries yelled back. Content in with the silence that answered his shout, he turned to the open doorway. "You all know what to do.." He said over his shoulder as he walked into the alien vessel. They kept walking for a while before t

hey saw a large, dead, bulbous creature impaled on a piece of metal right before their hallway split into two. "Team one, go left. Team two, stay with this... thing. I'll go right."

"Got it."

* * *

Trusk looked interestedly at the ship. It looked so much unlike any he had seen before, and he had seen a lot of ships. Who would paint their ship gold? Besides, there wasn't a singe weapon on it as far as he could see. Any ship traveling through these areas was armed. Who would be so naive as to pass through a pirate infested corner of the outer rim without something to defend themselves? It just didn't make sense. "Draco."

"Yes?" responded his first mate.

"I want a full update from our boarding team."

* * *

The head of the mercenaries led his two men along with him farther into the ship. It was unnerving, how everything was either a bright golden color or silver, yet everything still seemed dark. Then his comm beeped. "This is Trevin."

"Found anything?"

"Well, excluding a whole lot of shiny, expensive looking, metal and a dead animal, no."

"A what?"

"We found a really ugly gasbag with a face that had been run through by a piece of wreckage. The thing was practically hollow, but it definitely was alive once. And it was really big. I mean almost as big as a Dekard." He paused as he felt something squishy under his foot. Looking down, he saw some sort of squishy... carpet? "Well that's new."

These were his last words as the giant form of an ursadon jumped from out of sight into the middle of their little clump, sending Trevin's men flying and smashing him into the ground with its fists. It ran to another of the mercenaries and quickly ended his life with a bite from a head half as big as the man himself. The last of the trio started firing his blaster desperately.

"Trevin? What's going on!"

The last man turned and ran two steps before being swatted head first into the ceiling with enough force to send a starfighter flying. The beast roared in triumph and charged down the hallway in the direction that it could smell the other mercenaries from.

* * *

Trusk lounged in his captains chair, contemplating his change of luck. A valuable wreck filled with who knows what with nobody to keep them from taking it! Then his communications officer shouted over to him from their monitor, ending his good day.

"Captan! Something just took out one of the assault teams!"

"What! Get me another kriffing status update from whoever's left!"

* * *

Assault team two was bored, and had stopped searching the ship not long after they parted from the other six mercenaries in their squad. Of course, they told stories to pass the time."-and the I told him that if he wanted to take my speeder then he could just-"

The aquilesh was interrupted by his comlink going off. "Assault team three, report!"

"Uh, nothing yet. Why ya want to know so soon? It's only been a few minutes."

"Assault team one was just attacked, with no survivors."

At this, the three grinned maniacally. The aquilesh turned off his comlink and turned to his team. "Finally something interesting. Well boys, looks like we're gonna have some fun after all."

"Wait. Did you hear something?"

"What? Are you going crazy? I heard nothing."

The spooked mercenary walked forwards a few steps with his EE-3 held casually in his hands. "Weird. I thought I heard-"

The pirate barely managed to curse before Niadra fired her spines through him. The other two mercenaries ran as fast as they could, with one of the firing a few parting shots at the angry broodmother. The aquilesh turned back on his com-unit once again, in his last moments hoping to somehow be saved by his compatriots.

"Dal! Dal, are you there!"

"Yes. What's the rush?" Replied the Ishi Tib in charge of the team waiting with the dead overlord. They had been given the equivalent of a "time out" with guard duty for some dead creature that certainly wasn't going anywhere. Of course, what the others were doing wasn't fun either, but it had to be better, right?

"Something just crawled out of the ground and killed- augh!"

* * *

"Darek? What was that?" The Ishi Tib turned its eyestalks towards the two paths the other six had gone and nervously clucked his beak before turning to his two underlings. "Darek just said that they were under attack and somebody was dead. From the sound of it, he is too. We know that the other team is wasted as well, so I think we can all agree to-"

"Help! It's coming!" His retreat would have to wait though, as the las member of the third team ran out from his passageway. Unfortunately for him, he did this just as the ursadon resided to charge around the other corner, and met a quick if not messy end. Dal blasted away with his DLT-19 heavy blaster for a few seconds in misplaced bravery while his two "friends" ran for their lives. This angered his foe much more than it actually harmed it, and he paid for his foolishness as it crossed the fifty feet between them in one leap, squashing him underneath its claws. It then charged off at the two fleeing figures of the last two mercenaries.

"Terin! Terin! Open the door! Get ready to beat us out of here right now!"

"What? Why should I do that?"

"Because there is a kriffing gundark behind me and it has been killing of everyone else!" The ursadon decided to once again leap through the air and landed behind the trandoshan fleeing slightly behind the one talking to their last chance of escape. It simply swiped to the side, smashing the thandoshan's skull. "Kriff! It just killed Goran!"

"What! I'm opening the door right now. Get in!" The two frightened pilots shared fearful glances before sending a message to their leader. "Captan! Captan, our last two teams were wiped out they said it was a gundark! Actually he said there was something else here as well!"

Trusk scoffed at this. A gundark on a ship? Who would be so foolish to do such a thing? Yet, it would explain the missing crew. Still, precautions had to be taken. "A gundark? Do you really think that is what it is?"

"Well, it couldn't be anything else!" It was at this moment that the last mercenary rushing into the ship, with the door slamming shut behind him. Seconds later they were undocking with the ship, and turning back. This was no safety though, as their pursuer smashed through the weakly armored space around the hole they cut to enter and into the void of space, latching onto the fleeing transport and smashing open the cockpit, destroying any chances the three inside had of living to see the next day.

* * *

To say Trusk was shocked would be an understatement. He hadn't believed the pilot when he said it was a gundark that was attacking his men. Yet there was the proof in front of him, floating in space. An odd looking gundark covered in fur had just smashed _through_ a ship and managed to stay in control of its body long enough to destroy the cockpit of a dekard right I front of his eyes. A cockpit that could take sustained small arms fire for half a minute! And there were more of them! "Well Draco, looks like we didn't catch a lucky break after all." Turning to his weapons stations, he ordered his gunnery officers to open fire. The full power of his interceptor four frigate was unleashed. Sustained bombardment from two turbo laser batteries and a concussion missile launcher that could fire three missiles at a time was more than enough to bring down the Protoss vessel. By some stroke of luck, Niadra would not die so soon. For as the ship fell to pieces, it fell into the atmosphere of the planet below, before crashing down minutes later.

Capitan Trusk signed to himself. Bad luck seemed to follow him. Still, he was much stubborner and hoping to get lucky. Still, he felt like what he was about to do would bite him in the backside big-time. "Tell the ships to land. We can't leave, so we have to wait until help finds us. Oh. And send the last Dekard and all three of our Skiprays to check on the wreckage. There may still be something valuable there, and the carcass of the Other gundark may be in there. So, anybody know how much the skin of a gundark will fetch on the black market?"


	3. Ambush

Pain. All she could feel was pain. It felt as though her entire body was on fire. Then Niadra opened her eyes. Snow. There was snow everywhere, forming a shiny, white layer over everything. Even now, the flames from the ship were starting to shrink as it came they contact with the stuff. She spread out her psionic presence, searching for biomass. Nothing was near. But wait, what was that? Something was coming. She dragged herself out of the wreck and onto the snow. She stuck out like a sore thumb, but that didn't matter as she vibrated he skin and burrowed into it. She would heal, rest, and then she would be ready.

* * *

"I don't see any movement. If there was another one, it probably burned up in the crash. There is a lot of the ship left from entry though. Lots of metal and stuff. Looks salvageable."

"Thanks pilot. We'll set up camp and then send out a party to see what we can find."

"Got it. We'll do another pass and head back."

Draco turned back towards his captain. He was still brooding over the ship. He had always been the superstitious type, and now it was clearly showing. He was sitting in his chair, eyes glued to the empty view of space outside the window. He had been like this ever since someone told him that their communications array was damaged by a piece of the ship they destroyed. The lackadaisical idiot probably thought he was cursed. "Sir, we found the crash site and there's an abnormally large amount of wreckage. I've authorized some of our men to salvage what they can once we land." Trusk collected himself and stood up.

"Good. The way things have gone since this mission started, I feel like we will be patching holes in our ships soon enough. Prepare the everyone for landing. It'll be a while before somebody finds us."

* * *

She was ready. Niadra rose out of the snow like a phantom. She had sensed many humans and unfamiliar creatures land on the planet hairs ago. And now, as the morning drew near, her conquest began. She laid her eggs, which would hatch in minutes. Soon enough her brood would become a force to be reckoned with. That's when she heard the scream of engines coming towards her.

* * *

"Sir. Our men have just reported in from the crash site. They landed a few minutes ago and said they'll be back by midday."

"Good. I'll be in my quarters. And please, if anything happens, please handle the situation Draco. I need some time to myself."

* * *

"Hey, anybody else feel like we're being watched?"

"Oh, just shut up. Nothing can free fall through atmosphere in a vented ship and survive. So stop grumbling, and do what you're paid to do." The unofficial leader of the platoon of mercenaries was outwardly calm, but inside felt like something bad was bound to happen. He had signed up with a few people he knew from Burnin Konn when some new kid started raiding the local gangs in his area.

At first he shrugged it off as dumb luck that the kid was alive and forgot about him like everyone else. Then the kid struck again, and again. The bodies began to pile up, and he started to get worried. A rumor spread that the new guy worked for that psychopath Happy Dap. He attacked one of the tougher gangs in the area the next day, trying to get to some of a ship that was destroyed trying to get through the Iron blockade. The entire gang was wiped out. Once he realized his gang also had some wreckage, he just knew he had to leave. So, he gathered a few buddies and left.

Just by luck, Tyber Zaan had decided to try setting up operations past the blockade, and after meeting up with one of his "defilers", they got on a transport which somehow had the correct codes to get past the blockade. After that, it was a thrilling year of killing, plundering, and breaking the law. Then, he thought, we get this milk run and everything goes wrong. And now, with the rest of their ground forces dead, his assault squad had the dull task of looking through wreckage all day. Sure, if they found something they could keep for themselves, but there wasn't anything to find.

"Hey boss, I think I heard something." Shouted over one of the idiots he was in charge of.

"Great. And what is it that makes the sound of metal falling so much mor important than before?" He snarled back. Of all the people he had worked with before, this guy was the worst. He always talked, never fought, and wouldn't even fight unless there was no way he could get hurt. Which translated into shooting dead bodies, punching prisoners, spooking at every noise, and doing a really bad job of sucking up to his superiors. "You know what? If it's so interesting, why don't you just go investigate it yourself?"

"Uh, well it came from in there." He stammered, pointing into a roughly man sized hole in the wreck that went into... somewhere. He squinted, but couldn't really see past the darkness that seemed to make looking in impossible. Oh well.

"Well then go in!"

"But.. what if there's something in there?"

"WHAT IN THE NINE CORRELIAN HELLS IS WRONG WITH YOU!" He roared, stomping over to the now terrified mercenary. "LOOK! DO YOU SEE ANYTHING IN THERE? ANYTHING AT ALL THAT COULD HURT YOU?" Not giving the coward a chance to respond, he just kept going, "NO! AND WHAT TO KNOW WHY? BECAUSE NOTHING CAN SURVIVE FALLING FROM FRAKKING SPACE! SO GET IN THERE! IT'S JUST A DAMN HOLE! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG!" That was the moment when a zergling leapt out and onto his turned back, pushing the man to the floor and killing him as its hatch mate leapt down from above and killed the other man. Together they shrieked into the air with their brethren around the crash, and leapt into the slaughter.

* * *

"Help! They're everywhere! Augh!"

The Skipray pilot jolted his eyes up from his screen in alarm to the ground bellow him as he prepared to land. There seemed to be a massive amount of... creatures that were swarming the few men that had come to inspect the wreckage. A weak volley of blaster fire came from the last three mercenaries as they fled towards the deckard. In that moment, three things happened. Two of the beasts sprang up from the snow in front of the survivors, the pilot pulled up, and every ship on the ground began to power up and try to escape. The mercs died quickly, and their killers leapt into the still open door of the deckard and killed the terrified pilots. A few others hopped onto the closest Skipray and did the same. The last one looked like if was going to make it, before a few of the pack fluttered their wings and leapt onto it. From there, they sank their claws in and by luck, hit something vital. As if they knew, they leapt off as it fled higher into the sky, before it's engines began sputtering and exploded, causing it to crash into the ground.

Cringing, he averted his eyes and prepared to tell the camp what had happened, when he saw the big one. To call it big would be a joke. It was about half a as big as his two man starfighter. Normally, he would have just called in and told whoever was in charge what had happened before heading back. But seeing what had to be the mother of these monsters broke something in him. The other pilots had flown with him for years. These things had taken them from him, so he would take something from them. Besides, it wasn't like they could jump and hit something a quarter mile into the air. Yelling quickly to his gunner to arm the torpedoes, he flew at the broodmother. Niadra turned and looked at him. He launched a proton torpedo just as she fired her spikes at him. He would never know this though, some at a distance of half a mile away she hit him through the cockpit window before burrowing and avoiding the unguided torpedo. The last ship crashed before it could get out a warning, and Niadra immediately headed towards the landed Intercepter 4 frigate with her brood.


	4. Hunt

Draco ran as fast as he could towards the door, looking back for a moment in fear and seeing about a half dozen men from the crew lagging behind him. He looked forward again. There it was. The door. Eighty feet. Seventy. A scream. Sixty. Two more screams. Fifty. Forty. More screams. Thirty. The man behind him passes him. Twenty. The other guy's almost to the door. That can't happen. If he gets there first, I'm dead. Ten. Something flies over his shoulder and into his subordinate. He's in. Draco turns and tries to slam his hand on the button to close the door, but is stopped by something heavy slamming into his chest and pressing him to the floor. He is immediately given an unwanted view of a zergling's open mouth full of razor sharp teeth as it roars and raises its scythes into the air.

* * *

Five minutes earlier

"Wow. Of all the places he could have emptied his stomach, it had to be next to the ventilation unit." grumbled an angry technician as he pulled his thin coat closer to himself. "I mean, there isn't even a fresher in that direction!"

"Look, everybody makes mistakes." another man said to him from the group of people who had fled the ship after the accident. "His was just bigger than usual. Besides, nobody thought of warning him to not eat anything Vuxot offers." The eight men somewhat simultaneously glared at the mentioned Zabrak, who just looked at them and grinned.

"What? Would you want to give up the kind of entertainment we usually get when they do. I mean, that guy we picked up a while back on Er'Kit was hilarious! He couldn't stop walking into walls for days!" He laughed. A smug smirk appeared on his face as a few others joined in.

"Look. The point is that your antics have managed to make most of the ship smell like puke. And now we are all stuck out here in the snow, with almost nothing warm." Strapped back another of the technicians. Draco could easily understand his lack of humor, as the man's once black pants were now sporting a few patches of orange as well as a few other colors. Draco looked closer for a moment. Was that blue?

"Shut up." Growled a trandoshan, standing a short distance from the group. "I smell something."

"Yeah, that's probably my new pants, which are now covered in puke." Snarled back the angry technician.

"No. I smell something else."

"Great. You smell something and don't know what it is. My mind is blown. Now, if it's so exciting, just go and sniff it out like the filthy creature you are." grumbled another of the crewmen, managing to get a rowdy laugh out of others around him.

"But it's so cold. Trandosha's nowhere near as cold as this place." He sullenly grumbled in reply, causing them to start jeering again. "Fine, fine. Besides, why would I leave? The ship's right there. In a few minutes it'll have aired out, and I can go back. Wait, there it is again! Hello! Will you pay attention!" What are you all looking-" he abruptly cut off as he saw what had captured their attention. The flaming wrecks of the five Starvipers parked not too far from them and the swarm of oversized insects rushing towards them and shrieking their bloodlust to the world.

Yelling out a short curse, he turned and began to run to the frigate along with most of the crew. The trandoshan and a few others stayed behind, firing into the swarm for a few seconds until they realized that they wouldn't be able to stop them. The smarter ones turned and ran, while the trandoshan gleefully shouted out something about a scorekeeper and rushed towards his supposed prey. He was subsequently swarmed and torn apart while Draco grimaced and turned forwards again. A hundred feet to the door. They were about four times that distance behind him. He could survive a hundred feet.

* * *

He screams and struggles in vain and it prepares to lower its scythes into him, only to shriek out in pain as a high power blaster bolt hits it it the face. It falls limply onto Draco's body while its scythes gently fall and imbed themselves an inch into the floor. It breathed in for a moment and struggled to get up. Good god, it's still alive! I'm dead. I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm-

"Boss! It's dead, so stop worrying and and do something!" his savior yells out as he deftly swapped out his cooling cell and opened fire with his DLT-19X. Snapped out of his reverie, he looked out the door. While the DLT-19X was extremely powerful, it traded that for an incredibly low rate of fire. Even modified, they could only get a half dozen shots out at a time before overheating unless hooked to some really expensive tech. This one was neither, and they were obviously about to be overwhelmed. Draco grunted as he pushed the heavy carcass off of himself before slamming his hand down on the button. The door slammed down in the face of a leaping zergling, before locking them out.

* * *

On the bridge, everything was hell. The sudden attack and subsequent slaughter of a good portion of his crew had sent Trusk into overdrive. Reports almost came in faster that he could keep up. "Get us in the air and off of this frozen rock!"

"Sir! They're on out hull! They're everywhere!"

"I can't contact the salvage team!"

"Spirits! They're in the engines! They've literally climbed into the engines!"

"Then get us out of atmosphere faster you idiot! The faster we get up there, the sooner they suffocate and die!" At this moment an explosion rocked the ship. Barely a hundred feet into the air, it began to slow down and almost gracefully fall. The bridge crew could only watch in horror as the front of their ship tipped forwards and crashed back into the snow nose first. The crash threw nearly everyone to their feet, with only a few lucky men being able to keep their grip on whatever was closest. People began to cautiously stand up as the deck stopped moving beneath their feet. "Status report!" Trusk snapped out, rubbing his temples in an unsuccessful attempt to stop his growing headache.

One of the helmsmen looked down at his console before turning around. "Well, it could've been worse."

And then there was another massive explosion and all that awaited Trusk was blissful sleep.

* * *

Draco stumbled into the bridge and looked at what it had become. Limp pilots were scattered like leaves and anything that wasn't bolted down was everywhere but where it was supposed to be. Stepping over the crumpled form of his captan, he walked towards the only other person awake in the room. "How bad is it?" he growled out, looking distastefully at the pristine case of Correlian brandy. Of all the things to spend his money on, the idiot spent his credits on crash proofing THAT?

"Not good. They got in our engines and when we tried to lift off, managed to cause an explosion. That didn't even kill all the little buggers. One of them kept at it after we crashed, and now we're missing the entire back quarter of the ship. The salvage team isn't responding to my calls, so they're probably dead. We've lost everything space worthy. As if that's not enough, some idiot with a thermal detonator set it off by accident near the reactor, so we're low on power. The only good thing about all this is that the blast seemed to have killed all but one of them. We caught it struggling towards us with two broken legs, one arm missing, and it's wings shredded to the bone. We captured it in and now are keeping it under guard. We've collected the rest and stored their bodies for later. These things are tough, and we need something to show for this mission besides travel expenses."

"Good. I've heard that Tyber Zaan likes to use vronskir. I wonder how much he would like some these things tamed for him."

"I'm up! What happened? Anything broken?"" Sputtered their captain as he woke and pulled himself to his feet.

"Out ship has been incapacitated and we're stuck here. Our reactor and long distance commas array look worse than a hutt's face, but we should have enough power left to get out a short range distress signal." Draco responded, snapping a salute.

"Not that you blubbering fool! I mean is my brandy still in one piece!" he growled at his first mate, before seeing his un disturbed liquor and stumbling over to it. "Thank god. I really need a drink." As busy guzzling down alcohol as he was, he didn't notice the malicious glares that his officers sent him.

* * *

Under the cover of night, Niadra took a final step and reached the top of a cliff. Not far off, she could see the grounded starship, with fires still burning bright. Only two of her brood remained. It was unimportant. Yes it hurt, but she could grow her brood once the current threat to their existence was eradicated. One of her children had been on the doorstep of death, but even now she could feel him regaining his strength and healing. _Heal. Regain your strength child, and when the opportunity presents itself, strike them down._

* * *

The zergling had been nearly dead when they found it, run through by a large piece of the ship's hull that snaked it's spinal cord. That was what had probably saved it, as the wound had left no doubt it the mercs minds that it was dead. Once he was left unguarded among its fallen brethren, he feasted upon them to regain his strength and heal. It's body slowly but surely began to push the foreign piece of metal out, until it fell to the deck with a clang. Half an hour later, the zergling was fully healed and began to prowl the confines of his room. This went on for some time before it sensed its mother return and present a task. Five minutes later it had clawed through five doors and was hiding in the shadows watching the door through which two armed men guarded his last brother. It sensed that his companion had more or less healed without alerting them, and now needed only a diversion to escape. This was something he could provide.

Inside the room, the two guards tensed as they heard a bang from outside the door behind them. One of them opened the door and stuck his head out before closing the door. "Nobody there." Another bang was heard, and he irritatedly repeated the process. "Someone's playing a joke on us."

"Great." His companion mumbled back before rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Not only do we get the boring job of guarding something so heavily sedated it should be dead, but now somebody feels like this is a good time to joke around. There was another bang. "Ignore him. Maybe he'll quit it." Another bang sounded out, this time accompanied by a prolonged scraping noise. "Great. The idiot is messing with the captain's ship." He said, trying to reassure himself.

His partner wasn't as much scared as annoyed. "That's it. Next time he does it, we jump him." Another scraping noise. The door whooshed open and they jumped out into an empty hallway. An empty hallway with a pair of scrapes a few inches deep going through the walls. They nervously gripped their Relby-V10s before walking back into the room and seeing the shredded shock collar on the floor. They barely had time to instinctively turn around and raise their weapons before their former prisoner descended from above and buried his scythes into them. Finishing his task, he took a few mouthfuls of the meat before turning to his brother and leaving the disfigured corpses. After all, there were Terrans to kill.

* * *

The captain was now snoring happily in his chair, leaving all of his tasks for Draco. Not that it's a bad thing. He'd probably end up just making more stupid decisions and getting the rest of us killed. He was brought out of his musings by an extra loud snore before looking back down at his datapad. At least he would have a hell of a hangover when he woke up. Still, there were more important things than his mentally unstable captain. Looking down at the datapad once again, he uneasily frowned at what he saw. Nineteen people with rations to last twenty five a month. Should last us about one extra week. Could've lasted longer if the rations weren't so small.

"Sir. How bad is it?" He looked up to see one of the younger crewmen looking up at him worriedly. What was his name?

"It's fine. We can last for a month with what we have. Dunkir, correct?"

"Yes, that's my name. Well, I guess if there's anything we should thank the captain for, it's hoarding a third of our supplies in his room. Otherwise we'd have nothing at all."

How quaint. Someone nice on the ship. That hadn't happened before. Oh well. If any of them survived this, it probably wouldn't be him.

* * *

The pair of zerglings silently crept through the ship, nearing the front. They both simultaneously stopped. They could smell something was coming. Scurrying around a corner, they heard footsteps pass near them and keep going. Being the closest prey, this unlucky soul was followed to his room, which upon opening showed three more men sleeping in their bunks. The pair padded inside moments before the door slammed shut. Hiding in the shadows, they watched as their prey climbed into bed and eventually fell asleep.

The time was right. They crawled out and in unison raised their scythes to silently slaughter them while they slept before freezing. Footsteps. Instinctively, both of them immediately vibrated millions of minis clue muscles in their bodies trying to burrow into the deck itself. They disappeared into the deck in seconds, only to begin falling through the floor and towards the snow below them. Still acting on instinct, they scrambled to raise themselves out of the thin deck before falling down. So when the door opened a moment later, the tired pirate barely took two steps before noticing the two zerglings clawing themselves to their feet.

"WHAT THE-! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" he shouted out while backing towards the door before tripping and falling past the door to the ground. Jolting to his feet, he slammed the door closed and turned to see Dunkir by chance standing at the end of the hall, looking at him in confusion. That confusion turned to horror as a foot of a zergling slammed through the door and into the chest of the man before him, slicing down through chest and door before being pulled back down. In barely a second, the monster on the other side of the door managed to claw its way through the door and onto the now dead man before biting down. He turned and set off for the bridge screaming at the top of his lungs loud enough to almost drown out those of the men in the room behind him before the zergling let out a shriek of its own and charged. The walkways of the ship soon showed themselves to be his salvation, as the two zerglings couldn't seem to turn around corners fast enough to avoid slamming into the walls. This was hardly enough to slow them down much though, as they just kept shrieking and going on as if they were possessed. His luck ran out a few seconds later when a particularly large hallway gave his pursuers enough time to leap down the hall to him, surprising a pair of weequays running towards the noise. They opened fire with their blaster pistols, only to be the next victims of the second zergling.

* * *

"THEY'RE ON THE SHIP!" screamed a Starviper pilot as he ran onto the bridge and locked bulkhead that was installed next to the door. Seconds later the bridge crew heard the patter of footsteps and the slamming of hands into the bulkhead before a pair or shrieks pierced through the near silence of the bridge. The cameras showed that the three mercenaries on the other side of the door survived only for seconds. Two of them turned their backs to the door once they realized they wouldn't be getting inside. The less grizzled mercenary only began hammering on the door and pleading louder, not even bothering to draw his holstered pistol. One of the men, by chance the same man that had saved Draco from his death earlier that night, dropped to his knee and steadied his trusty sniper rifle while the other simply tensed and lowered his T-21 to his hip. They collectively got out two shots before being killed, although to their credit, they didn't show their fear. The other man was a different story, screaming louder as he turned and unholstered his pistol. As he was slammed to the ground, he desperately fired shots off at random, by chance hitting the camera and blinding the remaining crew to what was happening outside.

They stared in muted shock at the door before nervously backing away. "Well, at least they can't get us now." One of them dejectedly offered before the sound of tearing metal started coming from the bulkhead. "What? But-but that's not possible! They can't claw through a foot of that stuff! That door is rated to withstand multiple hits from star fighter grade cannons!" He kept blubbering on for a few more seconds before he was silenced by Draco.

"Quit your yammering and do something then! Come on! There's only two of them and there's six of us." He turned to his now awake and certainly hungover captain. "I assume you kept some weapons up here instead of in the armory, yes?"

"Yes. They're under my chair" he managed to reply, clutching his head as he battled his headache. "I'll go get them."

"Finally. I think that was the first sensible thing you've done in the past few days." Draco retorted, before reaching under the chair and pulling out a surprising stash of weaponry.

Barely a minute later, and the six of them were spread out across the room, wielding an assortment of weapons ranging from a CA-87 to a Tactical Vibro-Axe. They all shifted uneasily as a scythe finally stuck through the door before dulling out again. It would be minutes before they would get in, and give plenty of chance to be taken down in the process. Unfortunately, the men onboard would never get the chance, as a volley of blaster bolts slammed into them from the side and four of them fell dead, with Draco clutching his arm in pain. He angrily looked up to see a clearly inebriated captain Trusk, clutching a still smoking RT-97C heavy blaster in his hands.

"What are you doing? You've doomed us both, and destroyed any chance we had of killing these things!" Draco all but screamed at his former captain.

"Actually, no. You'll die, but I'll live. I am the one person alive with control over this ship right now, as well as the two dozen charges set up around the ship." Draco's reply was a kick to the knee, sending him falling to the deck and trying to stand up before falling on his wounded leg.

"You'll pay for this eventually, you insane and paranoid-" the sound of a blaster going of ended his rant and his life, before he shrugged and fired into his former first mate's body for a few seconds. Grabbing an explosive from under his chair and pressing a button to turn off the rest of the power keeping the ship alive, he hurriedly set a charge on the reinforced window before hiding behind his chair. The charge went off, and he clumsily made his escape through the hole in his ship. He managed to get to the cliffs a little ways from the ship before he heard the triumphant shrieks of his pursuers. He laid down and covered his ears before pressing the detonator in his hand, setting the entire ship up in flames. Flinching as piece of a torpedo tube the size of his head noisily landed barely a dozen feet away, then stood back up and looked at what little was left of his ship. "Knew I should've named it." Turning around once again, he remorselessly trundled onwards and up a gentle snow covered slope until he stood above the cliffs and looked down. "Damn. It's cold out here." There was the sound of snow being moved and he turned to see a massive monstrosity that couldn't be anything but the mother of whatever he had just killed. He paled once he realized her size, at a height well over twice his own.

 _A quick death would be too good for you. I will make you suffer._

And then he screamed.

* * *

 **Testing, testing. One two three. Check, check, check. Hello everybody! This is Justreidabook speaking. I had a point with this conversation, but I seem to have forgotten where I was going with this. Oh yeah! I apologize for the long periods of time between my short posts. To make up for the past four weeks of waiting I have forced you to suffer through, I have accidentally made an extra long chapter.**

 **I think you all know the shpeel by now. If not, don't worry, because I'll say it anyways! Please review, please don't force me to say read and review, because you should have read it by now. Feel free to tell me about mistakes you found in my writing via review or pm. I don't care if it has been years since I finished my story and you are reading this in 2020. Just tell me what and where it is. Also, you can probably guess the Star Wars game this is for. Or not. I'll tell you next chapter, so please guess away. It is perfectly fine if you choose multiple Star Wars games as the game used for the crossover.**

 **Ships N wiki/Interceptor_IV_frigate, starwars/battlefront/features/blasters, /Thread/3635-Hutt-Contracts-und-kostenfreie-Waffen/, wiki/StarViper-class_attack_platform, wiki/GAT-12_Skipray_Blastboat, wiki/RZ-52_Dekard_transport**

 **Let's wrap this up. If you want to beta, ask away. If... Uh, I just forgot what I was going to say again. Oh, I remember. I think this story will be twelve chapters long, but I haven't mentally planned out the whole thing. I am writing this as I go as well. The only pre written chapters were one and the the first half of two. If you need a beta for Halo, Mass Effect, Starcraft, SupCom, Star Wars, or something similar, just ask.**

 **Thanks to:War Cry's (providing near constant conversation to keep me alive), Shadowdino707 (for keeping me on this site for the past two years through his favorite stories page), every literature or English teacher I've had for getting me to be a good writer, and my mom (for changing me from a book hater to a bookworm in second grade).**

 **Anyways, happy spring break!**


	5. Recovery

**I'm back Jack. It's been what, eight weeks? Two months? Evil finals, APs, and a not-so-evil-school-play have kept me from posting for a few weeks. Anyways, I'm posting this as a B-Day chapter. Why, you ask? Because why not? Ok, you probably don't want to listen/read (readen? listad?) to me rambling on, so I'll end the intro here.**

 **OR NOT! I don't own Starcraft, Battlefront 2016, Empire At War:Forces Of Corruption, Star Wars Uprising, Star Wars:The Clone Wars, Star Wars in general, Just An Overlord, or the phrase I'm back Jack. That belongs to Randy Tucker/The Sound McGee. Wait, what? It doesn't? Whatever, it should. I have also based my current intro personality off of War Cry's and Randy Tucker/The Sound McGee. What? A guy needs to get his inspiration from somewhere. And Just An Overlord is amazing. If you haven't read it you should. If you haven't read any of the other stories on blizzard's website, then you should read those also. They're awesome, well written, and full of emotion. But (SPOILER ALERT) everyone dies in pretty much all of them.**

 **And WHOO HOO! RANDY TUCKER IS GOING TO START POSTING VIDEOS AGAIN ON JUNE 4th! THATS ONLY (CLASSIFIED) DAYS AWAY! FINALLY, AFTER ALMOST SIX MONTHS OF NO POSTS! HIS FIRST POST THIS ACTUAL YEAR! HUZZAH! HOORAY! HUZZAY! HOORAH! YAY!**

* * *

Niadra stood upon a mountain, looking out over the snow covered land before her. The entire planet was stuck in an eternal winter. It would be a frozen hell to any unprepared creature.

But of course, the Zerg were already prepared for this. Having spent extensive time on the subzero planet Kaldur fighting the Protoss and indigenous animals, they had adapted in ways that would keep them fighting long after their foes had been frozen alive.

And it was showing too. Niadra turned to watch as a small pack of newly hatched Zerglings leapt and played in the snow. Through her link to them, she felt their glee as they played their simple games with each other. With no threats for the swarm to fight, they reverted to their rarely seen playful nature, more akin to puppies than the killing machines they were.

 _Now for more pressing matters_ , she thought, as she began to walk through her new hive cluster, clawed feet slipping silently without a trace into the creep below. From what she had ripped from the terran's mind, he was a small part of a much larger faction, and had just been passing through. A faction that could crush her fledgling brood before they could grow large enough to retaliate appropriately.

From what she knew of terrans, they always took interest when their forces went missing. That meant they would come soon. It would be essential that she made sure they never reported her presence. If they knew the Zerg were on this world, she would likely find battlecruisers and marines covering the planet in mere days. It would be a slaughter, and the end of her brood.

But then there was the other matter that had her baffled. The memories she had taken had severe pieces of commonplace knowledge missing that everyone in the Koprulu sector knew. Even their weapons were different. Instead of massive, heavily armored marines with slug throwers, the terrans practically wore cloth for armor and utilized laser weaponry that was highly ineffective against her brood. Then there were the hundreds of sentiment species of aliens currently living alongside the terrans which she had never heard of before. There was no doubt in her mind. She didn't know where she was, but this wasn't the Koprulu Sector.

* * *

"I don't care if you need more time. I gave you the ships you needed to start your little fleet, and now it's time to pay up. It's that simple." "But this is unreasonable! Not even a hutt would have that many credits." "Well, thanks for telling me. I'll just assume you can't fulfill your side of the bargain. I'm terminating your contract immediately." "No! Wait-" Tyber Zaan ended his call with the worried senator, and lounged back in his chair. How disappointing. Ah, back to business. "Urai."

"Yes Tyber?"

"I need a man killed. He borrowed a few of my ships, and has failed complete his side of the transaction."

"It shall be done."

Whew. Well now that that was done with, what else was there to do?

His personal communicator chose that moment to go off. He pressed the correct sequence of buttons and stood up as a hologram of an ex-imperial officer appeared in front of him. She nervously adjusted her parka before standing at attention. Well this was better than nothing.

"This is captain Clarke of the Lucky Break. The date is-"

"Quiet. I don't care what your protocol was in The Empire. I honestly, don't even care about your mission. So just tell me what you need to say before I decide that you're wasting my time and replace you with someone who won't." Tyber snarled at the woman, gritting his teeth. Kriffing imperial turncoats. They always had a level of arrogance that just made him want to put a blaster bolt between their eyes. But, their skill was usually worth the annoyance.

The captain was flustered. "Of course sir. I mean my lord. Mr. Zaan." The traitor pirate stopped speaking almost immediately when she saw the frustrated look she was being sent. She composed herself, and started again. "We were following the rout assigned to the convoy lead by Captain Trusk sent to set up a training facility on an outer rim world. We believed that he had deserted and taken the other ships with him, but we encountered wreckage from his ships before we arrived. It was enough to account for about half of the ships of the line under his command. We continued searching and found a weak distress signal over an unnamed planet. We have currently landed there, and will soon begin searching for survivors." The captain finished, standing stiffly at attention.

Tyber mused over this new information. It wasn't entirely bad news. Trusk had been a thorn in his side for a while now. The bungling man had constantly made it by through shear luck. Luck which had disappeared recently. He had started making huge mistakes on even the easiest assignments, and been the reason for a huge spike in the consortium's repair spending for the past month. If anything, it was a relief that he was gone. Who knew, maybe he had miraculously found his luck again and was causing problems for Jabba. Zaan let a small smirk crawl onto his face at that thought.

The officer of course, took that as a bad sign. "Uh, sir?" She asked nervously. "Did I do something wrong?" "What? No, no. If anything, I think it's time you got a new ship. I am quite pleased by your report. The moment you return, I'll see that you get an Interceptor IV Frigate instead of your old Tartan Cruiser." Zaan casually replied.

The imperial was ecstatic. "Yes sir! Thank you sir! I will not let you down-" The door to the officer's cabin slammed open at that moment, with a Miralian rushing in.

"Ma'am! We're under attack! We don't know what they are, but they just came out of nowhere and started killing everyone! They're tearing through our hull! We need to-" the racketeer was abruptly cut off as a pair of massive claws sliced through the door and through his chest, before sliding downwards through the door. Zaan watched in undisguised interest as the captain panicked and grabbed a rifle from under the holo table.

"Well, I guess we probably know what happened to Trusk and his men. Captain, I'll have to take back my offer of giving you a new ship. It appears that you won't be needing it." Zaan sneered at him. He grinned as the captain looked at him in horror, the realization of her impending death showing on her face. Her life ended there, as the door broke down and a reptilian creature leapt through. She barely had time to raise her blaster before it was upon her. And then, whether it was pure luck or fate, the hologram glitched and froze exactly as the creature leapt onto her.

Tyber sighed. Once again, the holonet was disconnecting with his holo table. He'd have to get a new one. Then he stared at the frozen image in front of him. It had been playing at only one fourth size, but that was quickly remedied. He typed a command into the table, and the image grew to full size. Well, at least that still worked. He switched focus, and began to closely scrutinize the beast frozen in time before him.

It was about the same size as a vronskr, with two pairs of small wings on its back. They were too small to make it fly, but coupled with its legs that were obviously meant for running, it was probably dangerously fast. It was entirely covered in brown scales, acting as some kind of armor. Then there were its natural weapons. It had a pair of appendages coming out of its shoulders that it held above its head, each tipped with three large knife like claws. They had to be extremely sharp, to be able to cut through a steel door so easily. There was also a pair of mandibles on its head.

His assessment done, Tyber contemplated this interesting new discovery. To anyone else, it was undoubtedly a terrifying beast. But to him, he only saw potential. This beast was obviously deadly. It could probably best one of his vronskr in a fight. He wouldn't have been surprised if some mad geneticist had designed it in a lab. It was a living weapon, and one never could have enough of those. Failing that, imagine how amusing it would be to let a few loose outside of Jabba's palace.

He reached to his personal comlink. "Urai, I'm changing your mission. Something interesting's come up." Urai was confused, but the assassin was loyal to a fault. It wasn't important to him if Tyber Zaan changed his mind for no apparent reason. "Yes Tyber. What of the senator?" "I'll take care of him another day. I will soon be sending you a data packet with all the information you need to know." He hung up on his friend and turned to his holo table so that he could get back to work. Oh, right. One last call to make.

"Maintenance, I need a new holo table. Oh, and could someone please introduce whoever installed the last one to Silri's rancor? It's about time Cuddles got a snack."

* * *

Niadra was pacing anxiously in her hive cluster. Her expansion on this planet had been worryingly slower than she expected. On any other planet, a brood would manage to spread to entirely cover its surface in about half a year with optimal conditions. However, this planet was a far stretch from optimal conditions. The mineral crystals and vespene gas that the swarm would normally use to expand were almost nonexistent. They could always substitute biomass for such materials, but nothing seemed to live on this planet. With almost no resources to speak of, it seemed that her only forces would be those that she personally hatched. Luckily for her, her scouts had managed to find a system of caverns connected to a small cave on a mountain a short while later. These extensive caves were filled with small crystals that could be harvested to substitute for the much larger ones commonly used in the Koprulu sector. Another positive occurrence was her realization that while the crystals were much smaller than any resources the swarm would normally collect, they were filled with a much higher concentration of usable material and energy.

The result of this discovery was an immediate solution for her problem. And while the caves were not nearly large enough to let her spread over the whole world, they were enough of a boost to build a respectable force. She had set up her main cluster in the mountains, near the system of caves that was keeping her expansion possible. Within a week she had located two other such caves and set up hive clusters near them.

Then another group of terrans arrived. She initially tried to hide from them, likely driven by some instinct left from her time in the Protoss ship. She was forced to act when they landed minutes from one of her hive clusters. It was slightly larger than the first, but her forces and the element of surprise made them easy pickings. They didn't even last an hour on the planets surface before she felt every Terran presence be eliminated, an well as a few others that were somewhat Terran, but undoubtedly different. With the element of surprise on their side, she managed to crush the small force with extremely low casualties. The much smaller ship was then completely torn apart by her enthusiastic zerglings. The bodies were then taken by some of her drones to add to their supplies.

The campaign for the unnamed planet had begun.

* * *

"Sir, the battle group is ready. We will begin departure as soon as you arrive."

"I will not be joining you for this mission. I have more important things to do. Still, I want you to report in the moment you make landfall." Urai replied in his raspy voice.

"Yes, I know. I'll inform the captain of every ship under my command to do so the moment we arrive." The newly promoted commander turned from his holo projector and looked out over his fleet. With nearly two dozen ships under his command, he felt confident that he could take any challenge thrown at him that day. The glow of his impending success still lingering in his mind, he turned to his pilot.

"Take the ship into hyperspace." With that said and done, he turned back to the window dominating the front half of the room and watched as the fleet transitioned into the swirling blue of hyperspace. Oh, what a day. What a lovely day.

* * *

The situation was dire. The disappearance of another ship would undoubtedly bring more terrans. They obviously would bring a larger force, and manage to report her presence before they were eliminated. So she did what the Zerg always did when backed into a corner. Expand.

During the short week after the destruction of the second force, she scoured the area searching for everything she could find. By the end of her third week stranded on the planet, her forces had spread out over an area nearly ten thousand square miles in size.

Admittedly, they were spread dangerously thin. She had only fourteen hive clusters in total, with only four having easy access to resources. The rest were strategically hidden as early warning systems and watch posts. One had been set up in a natural canyon in the ice, kept open by creep to prevent the ice on either side from crushing the base. Another was in a cave dug by her drones in the ice. There was even one which was set up during a massive blizzard and covered entirely with snow, relying on their adaptations to extreme cold for survival.

Then there were her scouts. Her minions were moving farther and farther from her territory, searching for usable resources. She was already starting to exhaust the nearby deposits, a problem that would be the death of her if not fixed soon. This was worsened by another factor she had only recently become aware of. She was wrong when she assumed there wasn't enough vespene on this planet to support her army. There wasn't any at all. She was almost entirely cut off from many units and structures that would usually be necessary for any only good news she had was that all of her children had been spawned much stronger than they should've, but she didn't have the slightest clue why.

Over all, she was stranded on a planet with a Terran force of unknown size due to arrive in the near future, and little in the way of resources to keep her swarm going.

And then, she received a message from an overlord that she had sent away from the planet. A message that she had been both expecting and dreading.

 _The Niadra. Words for the We, carry we. Here, are the not-We. In danger, are the We. The Niadra, tell we. The not-We knows. This, the we know. Found, are We._

* * *

 ** _So, basically all of her minions are being spawned with all the in game upgrades that you pay for with minerals and vespene at the evolution chambers. You know, so they have more of a fighting chance. I know what you're all thinking, but they will need it._**


	6. Death

**Well, that was disappointing. My favorite youtuber has NOT started posting again. Harumff. Anywho, back to this. I'm glad to report I now have five reviews, compared to my previous grand total of zero before the previous chapter. Also, I'd like to suggest The Elements Of Style if you're going to start writing. I swear it has seriously helped me write better than I used to. Also, I seriously apologize for the long update time. I spent over a fourth of my summer on an island in South Africa studying penguins through Earthwatch with no way to type, another week working at a girl scout camp with the boys unit (I swear, it's like hearing cats), and another week preparing said camp (this included drilling thousands of holes in pieces of wood so that the kids could hammer nails easier). The rest was spent taking classes and doing other stuff that made my summer busier than the school year. Exactly three months to the day to update. But it's finally it's here, and you now have proof I'm not on hiatus. Now please silence your cellphones and enjoy.**

Niadra watched from the mountains as the first transports left the safety of their escort and advanced on her planet. A pair of zerglings peered out of their burrows as the intruders entered the planet's atmosphere in balls of flame. A crystal laden drone paused for a moment as the ships flew overhead. And as the outsiders finally landed and began to prepare their supposedly 'safe' base of operations, the Zerg watched.

The landing zone was a hive of bustling activity. Mercenaries rushed in every direction, while the last few transports competed for space to land. An officer yelled into his comlink at their commander in space as he was repeatedly denied access to a squadron fighters to scout out the surrounding terrain. Throwing his hands up in exasperation, he stepped out of his ship only to barely avoid getting smashed to a paste by a bantha skiff that decided to park right in front of his ship. "Pushee wumpah skocha-kloonkee!" The driver yelled at him, before noticing who he was yelling at.

"Hey! You!" the officer shouted, before being offered a hand up onto the vehicle.

"What's the problem boss?" The weequay piloting the thing asked nonchalantly, not caring that he had almost killed the man in charge of this operations ground forces.

"The newly promoted commander has decided to be a pain and not send his fighters to scout out the area for us. I want you to gather all the other skiffs and do that for us instead. I need a full report on everything within half an hour of our location."

The driver was quick to comply, whether to appease his superior or escape the madness of setting up camp, the officer didn't know. But if he cared so little about almost killing said superior, it was probably the latter. Still, that was one thing done. Now to set up camp.

* * *

The six bantha skiffs raced over the frozen landscape, a bored crew of weequay gunners looking around for something to occupy their interest while their pilot sullenly made sure they didn't crash. "Hey look, another hill. And another hill. And another hill. And guess what? There's another hill." One of them joked sarcastically, earning himself a slap on the back of the head from one of the other gunners. "What? It's not like there's anything else to do."

"Yes there is: it's called sleep, and I'm trying to get some." The other weequay replied.

 _Great, here they go again._ "Hey, can you wermos shut it? Especially you Yurm."

"Schutta Krago!" Yurm yelled back at his pilot, before being brought back into the conversation.

"See, what I don't get is why we don't just head back and say there's nothing but snow out here."

"Because if we do, we have to set up camp." The third gunner said. "And I think we all know that this is by far a better option than that." He took a moment to look at the landscape around them before joining them on the floor. "And personally, I actually like it out here."

Yurm snorted in disgust. "Well, I don't know what's wrong with you, but I really need to shoot something."

Their argument came to a close as their pilot noticed something. "Hey, I can see something! There's something flying up ahead." The weequay shouted, before repeating his message into his com unit to make sure the other skiffs knew.

His crew all ran back to their stations, getting their guns pointed as close to the new target as they can. Their excitement faded as they got closer, revealing a bloated ball of flesh with tentacles trailing towards the ground and a pair of oversized pincers. The thing simply floated in the air, slowly moving away from them.

"It's nothing important boys. Just target practice." A mercenary on a skiff closer to the creature said over the com. The rest caught up and began to circle the thing, as it slowly began to gain altitude in a vain attempt to escape. Then Yurm shouted out something and unloaded his turret into its hide. The rest joined in, whooping in excitement as it desperately tried to escape.

It held up against their inaccurate fire for a few seconds, before one lucky shot punctured it's skin. The skiffs stopped for a second as their prey exploded, before their occupants started yelling again.

"Did you see that! Did you kriffing see that!"

Their jubilance continued for a while longer before they managed to calm down and return to their patrol. Content, the first gunner sat back down and leaned against their skiff's rail. Yes they were flying over a frozen landscape in barely effective winter gear, but at least they got to blow something up. It's not like they were likely to find anything else interesting while on patrol. Hey, what's that shiny thing over there?

* * *

The sudden loss of an overlord was... problematic to Niadra. She still remembered the advantages that came with stealth from before she was a broodmother. It could be just as effective as a mass charge, while revealing herself too early would mean death. A single one of her children killed signified discovery. Her forces had been found, and near one of her caves no less. The Terran she killed hadn't heard of the Zerg, but if just one of the newcomers recognized them, her brood's destruction would be assured. She needed to seize the moment. Her first scouts had almost arrived at the invader's base. The new Terrans were weaker than most foes the swarm had fought before. If she attacked now she would likely crush them. But yet, she knew too little.

Up until now she had always come up against small bands of enemies who were entirely unprepared. No, there were too many things that could go wrong. She would take a gamble and wait for more of her forces to arrive. She ordered her drones near the overlord's to hide for the time being, while she waited for the Terrans to hopefully leave. Now she could only watch, and prepare for what would probably be a difficult battle against a waiting foe.

* * *

Resting on his cot, Krago inspected the crystal in his hand. It was an interesting thing, entirely colorless and twice as big as this thumb. It wouldn't sell for as much as a colored one, but he could probably charge a hefty sum for it once he had a chance to sell it. They had certainly lucked out yesterday, that was for sure. Only a few minutes after killing that flying creature, one of his gunners had yelled that he thought he saw something. They had decided to investigate, and found a massive cave full of crystals. They had taken as many as they could, which lead to Krago having an entire bag of them hidden under his cot. Now he was simply laying in bed until the eleven other men sleeping in this part of the deckard woke up.

That plan ended the moment the door opened, letting in both the freezing outside air and a very large Nikto. The Weequay didn't have a chance of hiding his crystal before it was seen. "Good, at least someone's awake in here. You're needed to- E chu ta!" Krago tried to keep the crystal, but he was just a pilot, while this guy was a grizzled mercenary with the scars to show it. He was roughly pulled out of bed, and had the crystal torn from his hand.

"Just as I thought." the officer said, studying the crystal with a critical eye. "This is a kyber crystal, used by Jedi in their lightsabers. Where did you get it?" "Tooska chai mani." In return, he was grabbed by the shirt and lifted into the air, before being tossed towards another bunk and sending the crystals underneath it across the floor. Great.

* * *

The night had passed, taking the security of darkness with it. Through the camp, men walked about in their snow gear. A few them were patrolled around the camp, and a few prepared their F9-TZs for future use, but most of them walked because they had nothing better to do. Close to a hundred men paced within the confines of their camp, and not one of them noticed the dozens of Zerg surrounding them. Their fate was sealed.

Once again, the skiffs soared over the frozen planet, but this time for a different reason. Krago glared at the three armed men traveling on his skiff. Yes, quite a different reason. After being caught with what apparently amounted to hundreds of thousands of credits worth of Jedi crystals, all twenty four of the pirates from yesterday's "trip" had been brought up in front of the man he had almost killed the day before and forced to reveal the location of the crystal caves at gunpoint. The boss had decided to prep their F9-TZ's and send them over to be filled with the things. Oddly, he had also decided to send the bantha skiffs there before the transports arrived, with a generous addition of eighteen armed mercenaries as well. Probably hoping we'll try to escape so he can have a good reason to have us killed. Yeah, like any of us would be stoopa enough to try anything. Still, it could've been much worse. He'd heard of plenty of people who had been killed for less. Some guards and a slap on the wrist were perfectly acceptable to him.

They sailed upper a hill, and there it was. The cave couldn't have been more than a minute's distance away. They'd finish and be back to plundering in no time. _Oh, another one of those floaty things._

* * *

She was tired of waiting. They obviously weren't prepared for an attack, and were even preparing to send out a large portion of their forces. Once they were separated, they would be even easier to kill. Still, she had to fight her impulse to attack prematurely. She was so close. She would need to wait for only a few mire minutes before slaughtering them all. Then she saw them. It was the same group that had killed her overlord the day before, and they were headed back to the cave. Then it all clicked. The vehicles preparing to leave. Forces preparing to take one of her precious few resource nodes. They were going to take from her the one thing keeping her brood afloat. She raged. Across the continent, her minions all sensed her intent and abandoned all previous tasks to destroy their new prey.

She watched in satisfaction as the first of the enemy fell. The hovering vehicles near the crystal cave were ambushed almost immediately by the guards she had recently posted there. Six zerglings sprang up from the ice, blocking the enemy's path.

Before they had time to react, the creatures were upon them. The raptors were everywhere at once. One moment a trio of soldiers were being torn to shreds, the next there was one jumping the gap between vehicles onto a... not-Terran's back. Fifteen seconds and forty two lacerated bodies later, they were finished. Then the real fight began.

* * *

Gritz watched from his dekard's roof as the F9-TZs finished loading up their troops. The rodian shivered as the cold pierced through his winter parka, followed by a harsh shove that sent him over the edge of his post and into the freezing snow below.

"What was that for Qugg! I'm miserable enough without being buried until I freeze!" He angrily yelled at his friend above him. The ithorian simply shrugged and jumped down next to him, sending additional snow flying.

Gritz stood and swiped the snow off of his parka, directing a kick towards his friend. The ithorian turned and caught his leg, sending him back into the snow. "Stop it. I hear something."

Gritz stood and listened for a second, before turning back to his friend. "I don't hear anything. Qugg, there's nothing out there but snow. Anyways, I think we-"

The pair started as a chorus of shrieks filled the air accompanied by a swarm of creatures pulling themselves out of the snow a few hundred meters away. All around the camp, hardened mercenaries and wannabes alike froze and looked away from the camp as dozens of zerglings rose from the ice and charged.

Then the moment ended, as everyone sprang into motion. Pilots rushed to find their sidearms, perimeter guards opened fire, and Gritz fumbled for the CA-87 on his back while Qugg pulled his D-12 from his hip and started firing wildly at the rapidly approaching horde. Gritz finally managed to grab his shotgun and looked up. In the fifteen seconds he spent grabbing his gun, the beasts had halved the distance between them. "Qugg, come on! There's three droidekas somewhere around here! We need to turn them on!"

The duo both turned tail and ran back into the mess of badly landed ships, glad to have an excuse to leave the front lines. A few seconds later they found the right ship, and opened the door. Inside, three deactivated droidekas were curled up into metal balls on the floor. Qugg started searching the cluttered ship for their activation switch, while Gritz stood behind the door with his shotgun raised. There was a triumphant yell from Qugg as they turned on, before the first screams started as the zerglings arrived at the defenders lines.

A few seconds later the screams stopped, and three droidekas began to head towards the fight. Qugg and Gritz watched anxiously for a few seconds until the first zergling appeared. Two seconds later its friends were sniffing its smoking carcass.

The two actually thought the droids would win at first. The small band of monsters was annihilated by the combined firepower of three droidekas. The last one died, and the machines began to advance.

Then another creature up burrowed from directly below the leading droideka, actually popping up inside its shield and shredding it before anyone noticed it was there. Nearly three dozen rounded the corner and charged the two droids, while the rodian and ithorian spectators turned tail and ran. Gritz turned back for a half second after he heard an explosion, and saw ball of writhing Zerg that covered the last droideka, trying to gain a purchase on its searing hot shield.

A final explosion signaled the end of their brief distraction, and the Zerg charged the two friends. They wouldn't make it. The creatures were barely thirty feet behind them. Then Qugg threw his friend to the side, and roared.

The power of the air expelled from his four throats released at their maximum potential was horrifying. In a single moment, a zergling stopped flying mid-jump and crashed into a ship with a bone-shattering crunch. Those still on the ground pawed at their ears and did everything they could to make the infernal noise stop. A few seconds later, twenty three exhausted zerglings feebly struggled on the ground as their prey escaped.

"We have to get to the transports! These ships will never get off the ground!" Grits shouted, as Qugg stood wheezing besides him. As if to prove his point, a deckard beckon to take off, only to have a small cluster of raptors leap onto it from below and send it crashing into the ground. They kept running after that, heading towards the sound of blaster fire.

Gritz was first to leave the body strewn wreckage of the transports that had been their home for the past two days, and thus barely avoided having his face chewed off by a zergling standing on a smoking swamp speeder. His CA-87 fired, and the creature fell to the ground, its head a slightly mushy mess of flesh. Its brother soon followed it to the grave, with a shot to the leg, then being silenced by a double tap from Qugg.

Gritz looked up to see that last resistance in the entire camp. The F9-TZs had barely held on. Their swamp speeder escorts seemed to have taken down most of the enemy, and the rest had probably been handled by the mangled remains of an e-web. Mercenary and Zerg bodies alike littered the ground. There were perhaps a dozen men left, watching tiredly as a vornskir ripped the life from the last zergling, before a final bite killed it as well. The men cheered, before seeing the two newcomers.

"Hey, nice of you to join us. Don't worry, the situation's under control." one halfheartedly jested.

"Whet are you all doing! We're probably the last people alive in the camp, and you're taking a break? There's about thirty more of these things back where we came from!" his point was helped by another shriek piercing the air, as the incapacitated zerglings from before finally came back to their senses.

The men's demeanor changed instantly, as the two pilots rushed back into the massive vehicle and began turning it on. "Come on, doesn't this thing have a cloak or something?" Yelled a merc before the pilots yelled back something about getting jammed by a claw.

The last mercenaries finally left the camp, as the Zerg fruitlessly tried to pursue their vehicle. It didn't matter. They'd be dead by nightfall anyways.

* * *

Tyber Zann mused over the new report in front of him. Hmm. Total casualties, actual tactics from simple beasts, and obscene quantities of Kyber crystals. Not so small of a deal anymore. He needed something done immediately.

"Uria, I have a new mission for you. You have all of my resources at my disposal."

* * *

Niadra looked through the eyes of a minion as it peruse the wreckage of what had once been an enemy camp. She had been foolish, and let her anger get to her. Most other brood others did this often, but she was different. To entirely forget about tacticts disturbed her.

Unfortunately, it meant that the enemy was able to get away when she attacked. They were already dead, of course. It had been simple to reroute farther out groups of her warriors into their path and kill them all. One of the aliens among them had been rather interesting. It had actually lived the longest, incapacitating her forces with the power of its voice before running away. Unfortunately, she was no genetics master, and could gain nothing from the creature.

So she explored the ruins in boredom. There was nothing of interest. The metal warriors had been formidable and killed sixteen of her zergling before their death, no small feat. Still, they were nothing but minor annoyances that no longer existed.

Then she smelled something through the zerglings senses. It froze, and began nudging a large crate. There was a small tear in the metal, and the gas was slowly seeping out. She couldn't belive her luck. Vespene.

 **So, I'm nearing the end of what I know will happen in the plot. I know the details of the next chapter, but don't know yet, what's going to happen next. Please PM me if you want to give me ideas, although you can totally put it in your reviews. Also, I want to remind you that this will be a short story. My original expectations put the final length at twelve chapters, but that might end up higher than the truth. Either way, there's going to be more fighting in future chapters.**

 **Also, you probably want to know a bit more about Zerg vs Star Wars capabilities. In this story, I'm taking their strength from the books and official stories published on Blizzard's website. So, one marine round can kill a zergling. This means Star Wars can actually stand up to the Zerg. Oh, and let me tell you about the current brood.** **Niadra has zerglings (raptor variant), hydralisks, roaches, queens, and all the other basic units.**

 **Finally, I want to add some mutations to drones later on from the Kyber crystals, since they're the ones handling them. Any suggestions?**


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